Supplemental Draft to be held this Thursday; Don't expect the Steelers to make a pick

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Their top two WR's going forward appear to be Greg Little and Josh Gordon. While they are both impressive physical specimen (both 6'3" and in the 225-230 lbs range), both guys sat out a full year due to NCAA suspension prior to joining the NFL...still, the Brownies spent 2nd round picks on each of them anyway.

Their top two WR's going forward appear to be Greg Little and Josh Gordon. While they are both impressive physical specimen (both 6'3" and in the 225-230 lbs range), both guys sat out a full year due to NCAA suspension prior to joining the NFL...still, the Brownies spent 2nd round picks on each of them anyway.

Maybe Browns are trying to be next Bungles..

greg Little has sweed symptons. He does drop some passes.

Weeden has no one to throw to. Maybe Weeden's best friend is Trent R and his O-line.

Browns expect Josh Gordon to play right away
Posted by Josh Alper on July 12, 2012, 4:14 PM EDT

It’s something you could probably guess by the fact that the Browns chose to use next year’s second-round pick to acquire Josh Gordon in Thursday’s Supplemental Draft, but General Manager Tom Heckert confirmed it in comments after the draft.

The Browns expect Gordon to play a role in their offense right away. Gordon has some serious catching up to do because of the late start to his time with Cleveland, but Heckert obviously wasn’t put off by that challenge.

“Where we got Josh was good value and we got him a year early,” Heckert said, via Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “We hope he comes in and plays right away. We expect him to play.”

Heckert placed Gordon alongside rookie quarterback Brandon Weeden and rookie running back Trent Richardson as the foundation of the team’s offense, which explains why he also revealed he was putting a second-round bid on Gordon regardless of where the team landed in the lottery. The door is certainly open for Gordon to win immediate playing time in the Browns offense and Heckert’s comments indicate he’s going to get every chance to earn it.

When quarterback Tim Tebow joined the Jets, the word of the day was “excited.” For receiver Josh Gordon’s NFL arrival in Cleveland, the magic word is “shocked.”

“I was more than shocked for sure,” Gordon told FOX 26 Sports in Houston after being picked in the second round of the 2012 supplemental draft. “I definitely didn’t think that high, but I’m thankful for the opportunity. . . . I’m definitely in shock. It still probably hasn’t hit me yet.”

The former Baylor receiver perhaps shouldn’t be shocked. His agent, Jeff Nalley, thinks Gordon could have gone even higher, if he had played in 2011.

“Josh, in any other circumstances, is a first-round pick,” Nalley told FOX 26 Sports. “We talked to so many teams, did so much leg work with so many teams and they did their homework.

“What they found out was he’s a really good guy and he’s also a tremendous player. Every team that I talked to, they spoke to his ex-coaches. They spoke to his teammates from Baylor and not one had anything bad to say about him. It was good to see that come out during this process. I’m just excited for the kid.”

Still, Gordon was in the supplemental draft for a reason — and the reason is that he ended up leaving Baylor after being indefinitely suspended by the team in 2011 following a failed drug test.

Gordon’s former quarterback at Baylor, Robert Griffin III, offered a candid assessment of Gordon before the supplemental draft. “He’s been a kid that’s been in a bunch of unfortunate situations, and he knows that he was the reason that those [situations] happened,” Griffin told Michael Silver of Yahoo! Sports. “So I think any team that gets him, of course they’re gonna feel like they’re rolling the dice on the kid. I think that in the end, he’ll be successful if he wants to be successful. That’s all on him. And he knows that. He knows he’s used up all his chances and everybody’s watching him.”

The fact that the Browns rolled the dice by giving up a second-round pick in 2013 suggests that team president Mike Holmgren wants to get the situation in Cleveland turned around sooner rather than later. In fewer than three months, they’ve added four players on offense via the first two rounds of the draft: running back Trent Richardson, quarterback Brandon Weeden, tackle Mitchell Schwartz, and Gordon.

It won’t be easy to get Gordon up to speed for his rookie season, given that he didn’t play in 2011 and that he wasn’t involved in the offseason program. Then again, those same circumstances applied in 2011 to second-round receiver Greg Little, who didn’t play football in 2010 and (like every other rookie) wasn’t involved in the offseason program.

Still, a perennially bad team can become a consistent contender by making only a handful of great moves, and the Browns are at least giving their fans reason to hope that the corner finally is being turned.

Why would a guy with a drug problem transfer to Utah, of all places. Isn't alcohol even prohibited there?

Josh Gordon failed three marijuana tests in college
Posted by Darin Gantt on July 14, 2012, 2:25 PM EDT

The Browns using a second-round pick (which they’ll lose in next year’s draft) to take wide receiver Josh Gordon in Thursday’s Supplemental Draft has been described as risky.

It’s Gordon’s off-field problems, more so than his on-field lack of polish, that worries teams.

In a detailed look at the quandary Gordon presented for NFL teams trying to evaluate him, NFL.com’s Albert Breer reported that Gordon failed three marijuana tests during his time at two colleges.

Gordon admitted last week to failing a test at Baylor which led to his suspension, but there were apparently two others he didn’t mention. The first was after he and a teammate were arrested while falling asleep in a Taco Bell drive-thru line (nice camouflage, stoners never go there). The other was at Utah, where he transferred after his second failed test at Baylor.

To his credit, Gordon’s at least saying the right things.

“The Cleveland Browns stuck their neck out and risked taking me and put their faith and belief in me, and I won’t let them down,” he told the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Breer notes that Gordon passed a recent drug test, and those results were given to all 32 teams. He also scored a respectable 24 on his Wonderlic.

“It’s very hard to find a comparable player,” an AFC personnel executive told Breer. “The off-field issues, you try and draw on those players like that who have turned into huge successes, and having those examples tends to give executives some peace of mind. I struggled to come up with a high volume of players that have had his amount of issues and done a 180. We’ll see. The rest of it is up to the kid.”

“It’s just something where you say, ‘Hey man, put [the marijuana] down’,” said an NFC personnel director. “You never know which way they’ll go when they get here. It’s hard to know how important football is, and how important weed is to the kid. And the environment he goes into is important too. Then, it’s how they mature through the process you put them through.”

Those issues are compounded by the fact Gordon has relatively little tape to look at. He had two 100-yard games in college, though he was overshadowed by a host of talented teammates.

Some have suggested he was a physical equivalent to players such as Justin Blackmon or Michael Floyd, and maybe he is.

But unless he’s truly matured, the Browns have taken an incredible chance.